More Local

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
• Former Marine to serve two years in jail for killing Albuquerque robber
• Wilson-Pearce battle for U.S. Senate exemplifies party's disparity

MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
  08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008
• Congressman is indicted
  08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Series of attacks target Green Zone
  08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Iran is defying U.N., agency says
  08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Waterboarding approval probed
  08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008

TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*

• Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
• Is Rome Burning?
• Ominous Skies
• The Road to Invalidation
• Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

SHARE THIS STORY [?]

Bernalillo County's Downtown jail is under intense scrutiny from a variety of sources —including a federal judge — after the 2006 death of an inmate and complaints about crowding and other problems.

Attorneys say they've received complaints about the conditions for inmates in the Regional Correctional Center, which is owned by the county and leased to a private company that oversees operations. The facility holds mostly federal inmates and detainees.

This morning, inmates' attorneys in a 12-year-old lawsuit related to crowding at county jail facilities asked a federal judge to guarantee them access to the Downtown jail.

U.S. District Judge Martha Vazquez of Santa Fe has visited the lockup at least three times in recent months, officials said.

The CEO of the company that runs the facility, Cornell Cos. Inc., was also in town last week to look at the jail.

The visits come as immigrant rights and civil rights attorneys investigate complaints about conditions in the center, where 70 percent of the detainees are immigrants awaiting deportation.

Others in the jail include suspects held by the U.S. Marshals Office and up to 175 detainees who can't get a bunk at the Metropolitan Detention Center because of crowding there.

Santa Fe lawyer Brandt Milstein said he was among a group of lawyers who conducted about 30 inmate interviews at the center as part of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project.

Those who've done time at the Regional Correctional Center had common stories of inadequate medical treatment during their stay, Milstein said. Many detainees said the jail is dirty, crowded and cold.

Complaints include a woman who fell off her bunk and suffered deep facial cuts and an injured back and neck but didn't get the medical help she needed, and a woman who spent more than a month seeking treatment for swollen and bleeding gums and numbness in her face.

Another inmate said he called four times seeking a psychiatrist for his anxiety. Others said they didn't have access to their medical records. One said she was given only Tylenol for her asthma.

"Certainly the information could and should lead to a lawsuit at some point," said Milstein. "About everything that can go wrong did go wrong."

The center has been run by Cornell Companies Inc. since Bernalillo County in 2004 vacated the building and moved to a new jail on the West Side. The company didn't return a call seeking comment on June 27 about the conditions.

Company CEO James Hyman visited the jail last week, according to John Dantis, the county's director of public safety, though it was unclear whether the visit was related to complaints about jail conditions.

Vazquez's trip to the Downtown jail was far from the first. Because of the crowding lawsuit in the mid-1990s known as the McClendon case, she repeatedly checked in on the center when it was run by the county.

Vazquez did not return a request for an interview, but the state's top federal judge has visited the facility several times recently, Dantis said.

"The judge wants to ensure Cornell is providing all the services required under the standards the (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has promulgated, things like medical, hygiene, recreation - all of those things," he said.

Vazquez isn't alone. Lawyers in the McClendon case filed a motion this morning in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque asking that they be guaranteed access to the Downtown jail to check on conditions for inmates.

The inmates' attorneys are allowed to regularly inspect conditions in the county's new West Side jail under a settlement of the case.

In their motion, they argue that they should also be allowed to inspect the Downtown jail because it is owned by the county and because county inmates are regularly housed there.

Inmates' attorney Brian Pori said crowding is a particular concern. For years, the county was forced to cap population at the Downtown jail at 586. Today — after renovations — the jail regularly holds more than 900, according to the motion filed on June 28.

Dantis said the jail, rated to hold 993 people, isn't crowded, though its population fluctuates.

"Have there been a couple of times they have exceeded the rated cap? There may have been, but I'm not aware of it being a problem and it was looked at carefully," he said.

Dantis said no jail is perfect.

"I don't know of any institution in the U.S. where there isn't going to be someone, either folks who are in there or lawyers, who aren't going to complain. What's important to me is when you raise those concerns, that they are investigated, that they are appropriately dealt with and we continue to move forward."

Bernalillo County Commission Chairman Alan Armijo said he has not received specific complaints about the center, but wants more information about conditions there and about the death of a jail inmate last year.

"I am concerned anytime anyone dies in a lockup or if they aren't getting medical attention," he said. Armijo said he's asked his staff to get more information on the situation.

The New York Times reported on June 27 that Korean immigrant Young Sook Kim died of pancreatic cancer Sept. 11, 2006, in the Downtown lockup after pleading for medical help for weeks but not getting it. An investigation by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General is under way, the Times said.

Kim's death prompted Milstein to start his interviews about conditions at the jail.

Some of the issues were brought to the county's attention this week when commissioners voted to approve what Dantis called technical changes to the operating agreement with Cornell.

The commission approved the agreement 3-2 on June 27 after several rounds of review by the state Attorney General's Office.

"We kept sending it back for two years, telling the county it wasn't OK" for legal reasons, Phil Sisneros, Attorney General's Office spokesman, said.

Commissioners Michael Brasher and Deanna Archuleta voted against the agreement.

Archuleta said she was troubled by "the fact that someone was held and not given access to proper health care."

"Individuals, no matter what situation they are being held under, deserve to not have their humans rights ignored," Archuleta said.

Milstein said he hopes the federal investigation into Kim's death looks at current conditions at the center, as well.

In a letter to the Homeland Security Department, Milstein said Kim arrived at the RCC in late August 2006. Milstein alleges that repeated requests for medical attention for Kim were ignored or given scant attention. During her detention, Kim was "tossed a roll of Tums by a nurse at one point and may have been administered a finger-prick blood test for diabetes."

Kim was taken to an outside medical facility only when her "eyes yellowed and she could no longer eat," according to Milstein. She died at the medical facility.

"In addition to our deep concern for the unnecessary suffering Ms. Kim endured in the absence of minimally adequate medical care, we are also obviously and gravely concerned that ICE detainees at the RCC facility are not currently being provided with reasonable medical attention," he wrote.

ICE spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa said the center meets agency standards. The agency has room for 700 immigrants at the lockup.

"ICE audits the RCC as it does other contract facilities every year. It has met the same national detention standards that the ICE-owned facilities meet," she said.